* People who have built a Web page and know basic HTML.

* Create multimedia projects: 51 %

Roughly 100 million Americans get their news online at least sometimes, and a third of them go online for news regularly.

There is some evidence that the Internet is drawing news consumers away from traditional media, but so far, only a little. In general, people who have a news habit get their information from multiple sources, new and traditional.

However, as your generation and the even younger "digital natives" enter adulthood, the "cannibalization" of traditional media may accelerate since young people are more likely to regularly get their news online.

Most people, most of the time, are not looking for in-depth information online.

Convenience and timeliness, as well as a diversity of sources, are the key driving factors for online news usage. On most stories most of the time, people do not seem to want to delve deeply into online subject matter (even though the medium makes it possible to provide and to access that depth).

News consumption used to occur almost exclusively when people were either at home or commuting to work. The Web has made it possible -- and socially acceptable -- for people to get updated news throughout the day, particularly at work. Peak online news hour: around lunchtime.

For online journalists, such usage patterns create a need for "dayparting," or modifying the nature of Web content by time of day.

Users seem to be increasingly savvy about distinguishing among different kinds of sites. They recognize the Internet is not one uniform medium but is made up of millions of individual components.

While a large majority think information on the sites of established news organizations and government agencies is reliable, only a small minority say the same about pages posted by individuals.

Brand quality transfers to the Web. Major news sites are popular at least in part because they combine the reliability of old media with the convenience and control of new media.

Participatory journalism: The act of a citizen, or a group of citizens, playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information.

The intent of this participation is to provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information that a democracy requires.

Your readers know more than you do on any given topic.

Journalism has long been a lecture. It is evolving into something that incorporates a conversation and seminar (Gillmor, p. vi).

Journalists' long-standing role as gatekeeper of the news is threatened -- by the audience we serve. That audience is becoming an active participant in the creation and dissemination of news and information.

There is little or no editorial oversight of blogs or other forms of participatory journalism. instead, there are many, simultaneous, distributed conversations that "either blossom or quickly atrophy in the Web's social network" (p. 9). The emphasis is on publishing information rather than filtering it; the collective audience acts as after-the-fact editors.

(Put another way, the order of things in traditional media is "filter, then publish." The order among online communities is "publisher, then filter.")

A new media ecosystem is taking shape, in which traditional and participatory journalists play symbiotic roles.

"What is emerging is a new media ecosystem, where online communities discuss and extend the stories created by mainstream media. These communities also produce participatory journalism, grassroots reporting, annotative reporting, commentary and fact-checking -- which the mainstream media feed upon, developing them as a pool of tips, sources and story ideas" (p. 13).

Gillmor makes a similar point in his Nieman Reports essay. He sees this shift toward a far more engaged news audience as beneficial to democracy:

We need intelligent filters to find what's good and make sure nothing essential is missed. Journalists figure, "That's us!"

But journalists claim that role based on professional knowledge (which, by definition, amateurs don't and can't possess). Bloggers suggest interaction is more important in building trust and authority.

* Metamorphosis
New media forms emerge gradually from older ones.

* Propagation
Emerging forms retain and spread dominant traits from earlier forms.

* Nonlinearity
Stories do not have to have a predetermined linear order.

* Storage and Retrieval
A vast amount of information can be stored and made readily retrievable.

“More and more people are speaking. Their words are arriving faster and faster … What was needed at the Tower of Babel was not another voice but a trained interpreter. … Balance, fairness, restraint and service: the most promising future for journalism is rooted in its time-honored values.” (Gup, Media Studies Journal)

“I can see a future transformed by an Everyman Journalism that combines the best of traditional news organizations with all the diverse knowledge and insight of a global newsroom. … We face a future in which the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of the press becomes co-extensive with its guarantee of freedom of speech.” (Godwin, Media Studies Journal)